Chirality-enhanced nonlinear optical response of frustrated liquid crystals

Abstract

Liquid crystals (LCs) are known to have a facile response under external electric and optical fields, which in the past have led to various technological applications such as LC displays or self-focusing flat lenses. In this contribution, we describe how chirality can increase the overall nonlinear optical response of frustrated liquid crystal samples based on the formalism of Green functions. We describe how such an effect can be leveraged to generate low-power spatial optical solitons in diverse sample geometries, and also suggest possible applications that could be derived from this theoretical and numerical work.